Several proposals regarding the primary school will be debated in Inatsisartut on Wednesday.
Among them is a proposal to introduce a limit of 18 students per class in the primary school. The coalition party Demokraatit's group in Inatsisartut is behind the proposal.
The party believes that too many students in one class reduces the teachers' ability to adapt teaching, detect academic or social challenges in time and create strong relationships with the individual student.
- A lower class size is therefore not only a question of academic level, but also a central tool in the work of creating better well-being in the primary school, the party's group writes about the proposal.
Requires millions of kroner and more teachers
The group is aware that the proposal is costly and refers to a calculation that Naalakkersuisut made last year.
The calculation showed that a reduction in the class size to 18 students nationwide would require 53 additional classes and 68.6 teacher full-time equivalents. The total additional municipal expenses were calculated at approximately 33.7 million DKK annually.
These are precisely the costs that the Greenland Government emphasizes in a response note published ahead of today's meeting in the Inatsisartut Hall.
The Greenland Government emphasizes that it agrees that class size is important for teaching, but also emphasizes that it is a problem that mainly occurs in the capital, and the vast majority of schools in the rest of the country have class sizes of 18 students or less.
May exacerbate teacher shortage
According to the Government of Greenland, the proposal will potentially make it necessary to build an additional school in Nuuk and hire more teachers, which could exacerbate the teacher shortage in other areas:
- A general reduction in the class size to a maximum of 18 students will therefore be particularly significant in Nuuk, where it will require the establishment of additional school capacity, including potentially a new 2- track school, writes the Government of Greenland and continues:
- This will also lead to an increased need for teachers. In a situation where there is already a teacher shortage, it must be expected that such an expansion will largely have to be covered by recruitment from other parts of the country or from abroad, which could exacerbate the existing shortage of teachers in other areas.
Proposes working group
The Government of Greenland proposes a compromise with the establishment of a working group to assess targeted reductions in class quotas where needed.
The working group will also look at another proposal from the Demokraatit group to abolish the mandatory written grade tests in grades 3 and 7.
According to the plan, the two proposals are to be discussed on Wednesday in conjunction with a proposal to adapt the school year to Greenlandic cultural and societal conditions from Kuno Fencker, Naleraq.
